Monday, July 9, 2007

Houston, TX - Art League Houston is pleased to announce the opening of Adaptation, a new series of paintings and drawings by Houston-based artist Katherine Veneman, July 13- August 24, 2007. Adaptation is the artist's first solo exhibition in the Houston area, and presents complex, abstract paintings that metaphorically charts processes of change-and growth-associated with experiences that affect us all as we face obstacles, shifts in perspective and in circumstance. The opening reception for the exhibit is Friday, July 13, 2007, 6:00-8:00 pm, with an artist's talk by Ms. Veneman at 6:30 pm.

"Topsy Turvy", 2006, Katherine Veneman

Informed by both painting traditions and the natural and built environments, Veneman's large paintings are complex, with rich multi-layered surfaces that describe a space which is at once illusory and tangible. Carefully drawn lines appear to be ropes and architectural structures, as they are engulfed by waves and swirls as chaos overcomes order. Planes overlap and intersect, blending together or sharply conflicting. Forms dissolve and reemerge, their color, marks and texture altered. The accompanying series of small black and white ink drawings forms a counterbalance to the highly-charged colorful spaces, offering clearly readable glimpses of spatial environments in flux.

Veneman says, "My work describes a history that is ongoing, and records a process of change as it occurs while at the same time allowing decisions that have already happened to remain visible. To me, Adaptation is about seeking value in the unfamiliar, re-inventing the known in the face of the unfamiliar-and expanding and testing one's worldview in the process."

Born and raised in the Washington, DC area, Veneman earned her BA in Fine Arts and History from Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts and her MFA in Painting from American University in Washington, DC. Her studio practice was based in Providence, Rhode Island for several years, until she re-located to Houston in 2003.